posted at 5:28 pm on July 13, 2007 by Allahpundit

A compelling case, my friends, and perfectly characteristic of St. John to be throwing money down the toilet on ineffective spots. But unless I missed something, the author never actually links Amy Bradford to the abrad2345 YouTube account or the MySpace page. It’s a striking coincidence, to be sure, but why would a professional media outlet be posting anonymous attack ads on behalf of its client under screennames that could be traced back to its employees? Create an account called “RealBalls” or “RudySucks” or whatever.

It tells you everything you need to know about the competence of St. John’s campaign that on a day when his New Hampshire speech about Iraq should be getting headlines, it’s competing with stories about his money woes, his staff layoffs, his plans B and (potentially) C, and his vow to stay in the race unless and until a fatal illness brings him down. Mary Katharine did note a possibly significant qualifier to that last part in his conference call today, though — “I will do whatever is necessary, including taking time off in September from the campaign” to lobby for continuing the mission in Iraq, he said. A fine idea.

Did Levin ask Fred why he canoodled yesterday with the far left Firemens union that supported Kerry in ’04 and plans to be virulently anti-Rudy in ’08??

Really bush league move by Fred.

And did Levin ask him if he will get off the pot and declare his candidacy so he can face off mano a mano with all the other declared candidates, or will he just play coy for another few weekd and duck them?

I am becoming less and less enamored of Freds evasion, indecisiveness, and cutesy-poo non-candidacy candidacy every day.

And lay off the far left andi-Rudy Union scum, Fredo, because now you start to look just as opportunistically tone deaf as Saint McCain himself.

I kind of feel bad for McCain. I supported him in 2000 (the first election I could vote in). He was so different back then. The way he carried himself and what he had been through, I felt like he could have been one of the best Presidents ever. Sad.

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1) BACKGROUND:
as we know, the issue is that there were a couple of annonymous hit ads against guliani. a blogger named “arlen parsa” claims to have identified the producer of the vids to be the mccain campaign, via a rogue producer at his ad firm named amy bradford. “arlen parsa” claims to have deduced this by tracking the vids back through the youtube account in question, “abrad2345”, to a myspace account named “Public Persuasion”. beyond this, he offers no proof of the connection, yet repeatedly asserts the connection with certainty.

first then, let’s look at the youtube and myspace accounts to see if they appear genuine…

2.a) MYSPPACE

Public persuasion’s myspace page:

last login: 7/13/07

created: 12/28/06 (gleaned from first comment – a piece of band spam.)

first apparent activity: 7/1/13 (first non-spam comment)

…is the most recent member of several myspace gop-related groups — including “john mccain in 2008″…

with the text:
“Giuliani goes negative on McCain in ad…”
“I’m not sure if his campaign really put this out there, but I think McCain supporters should see this ad. It’s got some low blows against McCain and Romney, but it’s also kinda funny in its own way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPhPmjVKm8I”

This appears to be “Public Persuasion”‘s sole and only contribution to myspace ever.

– would you believe, a subscriber of the The Daily Background blog’s youtube channel?

where the videos are hosted.

3) NOW….

a dude named “PhilEBinson” joined youtube on 7/9/07 to write this response to the first of the two guliani vids:

“I did some sleuthing and there’s some woman there who’s been pushing the clips on some of the rightwing MySpace groups.Turns out that she got at least one of them posted on the comments section of the Official Giuliani page.Not only did they let the post stay up there (they have to approve html code for their comments section), but they even sent her a comment back that they “loved the video”! So whether they were official before or not, they are now! Check it out myspace dot com slash 33617137 ”

whether phil is a tool or a contrivance, “arlen parsa” uses this exact reasoning as the final flourish in his blog post:

“In an ironic stroke, Bradford posted the first of the videos, called “Real Balls,” (which makes light of Giuliani’s bout with prostate cancer) to the former New York City mayor’s official MySpace profile on Independence day, asking if it was an “official” video. A Giuliani staffer responded on Bradford’s profile the next day saying merely “We love that video!”

“phil” wrote the youtube comment above four or more hours after recieving a comment from “public persuasion”:

“Hey Phil – thanks for your message, and I’d love to get together in person and “compare notes.” I’m pretty busy the next week or two with the ‘campaign’ but after that in Old Town or wherever. How was GOPalooza? I heard it was crazy. – Ames”

this provokes one to question: is this “ames”? or is this “some woman”? does he know here congenially? or is he “sleuthing” “rightwingers”? it should also be noted that, while phil’s myspace page is pretty robust, his youtube persona and vid selections are clearly in a leftish vernacular.

in any case,

“arlen parsa”, a regular guestblogger at bradblog who’s byline at truthout identifies him as , “a documentary film student at Columbia College Chicago ( http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012407F.shtml )”, writes this “expose” identifying “public persuasion” as one and the same with “abrad2345” and states affirmatively that the culprit is none other than amy bradley, an obscure employee of the ad agency which produced THE SWIFTBOAT ADS!!!! and who now ure under a consultation contract with mccain.

then “public persuasion” returns to “phil”‘s myspace page and writes:

“Phil, I got your message and those all sound like fun things to do, especially the Georgetown pub crawl. I don’t make it over (or under with the Metro) the Potomac much, but who can resist Foggy Bottom? But here’s the thing. Issues with the ‘campaign’ really heated up at work today; big time. I might have royally screwed something up. Though I could probably use a stiff drink, I don’t think I should go out in public much in the next few weeks. Sorry. Let’s try again after the dog days of summer.”

…and then the pen was set down.

one odd thing about the close to the story. “public persuasion” had been exposed, her employers had somehow gotten wind of the matter, she had been dressed down for it, and was back at her desk diddling around in her newly discovered myspace page by 11:45 am. “arlen” didn’t file his “expose” untill 12:15.

which would be 1:15 in dc, with the time difference with chicago and all that.

that guy in the guliani vid? hang around the columbia art campus around wabash. you’re more likely to catch him there than in dc.